Oddball gets a proper EDC flashlight

For a couple years now, I’ve carried an INOVA Microlight on my keychain.  Handy little light, but at 6 lumen on the bright setting, not very bright.  While i have several other flashlights around the house and in the cars, they’re all a little too big for me to slip into my pocket with all the other crap I carry.

I recently picked up a Fennix E11, which is a pretty handy little light.  At 105 lumen, it’s not as bright as some of the “OMG I’m blind!!!” tac lights out there, but it is sufficiently bright to illuminate most situations.  I’m also guessing that 105 lumen is bright enough to seriously distract a thug in the night.

It’s also a good size.  It’s about the length of 2 AA batteries, and about 4mm thicker.  I use that as a gauge because it runs off of 1 AA.  I know all the cool kids are running around with flashlights that use CR123 batteries these days, but I like knowing that I can run into any drugstore, gas stations, whatever and find what I need to feed what I think has become my EDC light in addition to the little LED that hangs off my keychain.

One thing that’s always annoyed me with a lot of the high intensity lights is the method to change modes.  Most of the ones I’ve played with have you cycle through the modes by pushing the button.  It’s not a big irritant, but it’s there.  The E11 avoids that issue by having you select the modes by twisting the lamp end.  Tightly closed is the maximum brightness, and twisted a bit back from full tight is a dimmer setting (they claim 35 lumen).  Of course, this light only has those two options, unlike many others, but those options tend to be flashing some sort of signal or another.  I guess having it automatically flash SOS is nice if you need it, but 99% of the time it’s just another button press you have to make before turning it off.  Oh, and button on the back of the light does turn the light on as you push down, so you can use it as a momentary switch if you don’t push down all the way.

So far, I think I like this light.  I know I can get a brighter one, or a smaller one, but this works and seems pretty sturdy.  At roughly $26, it’s not a bad deal.